Friday, February 16, 2018

From now until 16 March Groove will be featuring one of the artists coming to WOMAD 2018.

Kiwiana galore! The Slacks is a four-piece formed by brothers Scott and Mark Armstrong. The sound of the band has been described as folk-rock slapped about the face by country and the blues with a dusting of Irish-ska. Their recent release, Big Aroha, was filmed in a local 4-Square and struck a chord with ex-pat Kiwis and schools all over Aotearoa.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

From now until 16 March Groove will be featuring one of the artists coming to WOMAD 2018. Today it's Bixiga 70

Even if the São Paulo bairro of Bixiga was almost entirely colonized by Italian migrants more than one hundred years ago, today that influence is clear only when reading the surnames of its inhabitants and eating out in one of its delightful restaurants. Culturally, it is indeed another pair of shoes, because the central borough of the Brazilian city is dotted with venues, cultural centres and shops able to give life to one of the most exciting and diverse artistic panoramas in Brazil.

Bixiga, as the name suggests, is also the inspiration for a project born five years ago called Bixiga 70, which has rapidly become an embodiment of the musical dynamism of the area. Earlier this year, the band, which added a distinctive 70 to its name recalling the outstanding band of Fela Kuti, Africa 70, but also the house number where they used to live, has released its third LP and demonstrated that the link between Brazil and West Africa is possibly even stronger than the one with Europe.

In truth, the 10-piece collective represents the most African-oriented aspects of the paulista music scene, drawing from afrobeat, funk and jazz, Afro-Brazilian spiritual imaginary, but also from their own country’s and South America’s traditional repertoires, reviving styles like carimbó, candomblé, samba, salsa, cumbia, etc.

From now until 16 March Groove will be featuring one of the artists coming to WOMAD 2018. Today it's Anoushka Shanka.

Sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar is a singular figure in the Indian classical and progressive world music scenes. Her dynamic and spiritual musicality has garnered several prestigious accolades, including six Grammy® Award nominations, recognition as the youngest – and first female – recipient of a British House of Commons Shield, credit as an Asian Hero by TIME Magazine, and a Songlines Best Artist Award. Most recently, she became one of the first five female composers to have been added to the UK A-level music syllabus.

Deeply rooted in the Indian Classical music tradition, Anoushka studied exclusively from the age of nine under her father and guru, the late Ravi Shankar, and made her professional debut as a classical sitarist at the age of thirteen. By the age of 20, she had made three classical recordings for EMI/Angel and received her first Grammy® nomination, thereby becoming the first Indian female and youngest-ever nominee in the World Music category. In 2005, Anoushka released her self-produced breakthrough album Rise, which earned her a second Grammy® nomination. Following this nomination Anoushka became the first Indian artist to perform at the Grammy® Awards.

As an international solo artist, Anoushka has performed in a range of distinguished venues such as Carnegie Hall, Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House, Vienna Konzerthaus, Salle Pleyel, Royal Festival Hall, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Palais des Beaux-Arts and the KKL Luzern. Her event appearances include the Verbier Festival, the Prague Spring Festival, Boom Festival and the London Proms. Anoushka has championed her father’s four sitar Concertos with the world’s leading orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Lucerne Symphony and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, under the leadership of esteemed conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kristjan Järvi and Jakob Hrusa.

In 2011 Anoushka signed to Deutsche Grammophon, heralding a fertile creative period which was rewarded with three further consecutive Grammy® nominations. Traveller (produced by Javier Limon), was a critically-hailed exploration of Indian Classical music and Spanish flamenco. This was followed by Traces of You (produced by Nitin Sawhney and featuring Anoushka’s half-sister Norah Jones on vocals), and Home, a purely Indian Classical album where she returned to the Ragas her father had taught her. Through her bold and collaborative approach as a composer, Anoushka has encouraged cross-cultural dialogue whilst demonstrating the versatility of the sitar across musical genres. As a result, Anoushka has created a vital body of work with a prominent roster of artists such as Sting, M.I.A, Herbie Hancock, Pepe Habichuela, Karsh Kale, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Joshua Bell.

Recent highlights include curating a Tagore Festival at The Globe Theatre in London, dedicated to the legendary Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, and a large-scale Zeitinsel at Dortmund Konzerthaus where she was given a carte-blanche to present four full-length programmes reflecting different aspects of her artistic life.

Besides her career as a composer and performer, Anoushka has authored the book Bapi: The Love of My Life, a biographical portrait of her father, and been a regular columnist for New Delhi’s First City magazine and the Hindustan Times.

Anoushka’s artistic output increasingly seeks to reflect her impassioned support of women’s rights and social justice. In 2011, in response to the horrific gang-rape of Jyoti Singh Pandey in Delhi, Shankar threw her weight behind the campaign One Billion Rising on Change.org. Following this, she was invited to take part in a special panel on violence against women at the annual Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi (2013). Other recent projects include hosting a radio show about gender quality to promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, coordinating a call-to-action to the UK government in response to the current European refugee crisis, which was signed by more than 100 leading British cultural figures and published in the Guardian newspaper in September 2015. In 2016 she leant her voice to a feature-length film documentary, Stolen Innocence, about India’s untold story of the world’s fastest growing criminal activity of human trafficking.

Her latest album on Deutsch Grammophon, Land of Gold, is her personal response to the humanitarian trauma of displaced people fleeing conflict and poverty. The release in spring 2016 was followed by tours of North America, India and Europe including performances at wide-ranging venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Dubai Opera House and at live music festivals including Glastonbury (West Holts), WOMAD and Rudolstadt. Highlights of the current season include performances of Concerto No 2 with the Berlin Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic Orchestras.

Today, from her home in London where she lives with her husband and two sons, Anoushka’s career reflects her aim to constantly learn and grow as an artist. Across continents and demographics, people respond to what she calls the “honesty” in her music, which is integral to her work both in the classical and modern musical spheres. As Nitin Sawhney wrote, “no one embodies the spirit of innovation and experimentation more evidently than Anoushka Shankar.”

They make abstract, instrumental, midtempo dance music whose classification falls somewhere between trip-hop and acid jazz. Featuring the production skills of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, Thievery Corporation released several warmly received singles on their own Eighteenth Street Lounge (ESL) label (named after their own Washington, D.C. bar and nightclub) in 1996. Although previously known primarily among acid jazz and rare-groove DJs, the group shot to minor celebrity when a track from one of their early 12"s appeared on respected DJ/producers Kruder & Dorfmeister's mix session for Studio K7's DJ Kicks series. Similar in many respects to that Viennese production duo, Thievery Corporation subsequently grew in popularity among a wider audience of DJs and headphonauts.

The duo's debut LP, Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi, appeared in 1997, along with a compilation of Washington, D.C.-based electronica artists entitled Dubbed Out in DC (both albums were released by ESL). After signing with the British label 4AD, Thievery Corporation began to work on their second LP but were forced to postpone its release date after tapes were stolen in a mugging. The stopgap remix compilation Abductions & Reconstructions was released in 1999, and their second proper album, The Mirror Conspiracy, followed one year later. The duo's growing fame made them a natural choice to select tracks for the 2001 Verve compilation Sounds from the Verve Hi-Fi. Also one of Groove's favorite albums.

They returned to their own work in 2002 with The Richest Man in Babylon, and the mix album Outernational Sound and remix EP Babylon Rewound both appeared in 2004. That same year, the track "Lebanese Blonde" was featured in the highly successful Garden State soundtrack, which later won a Grammy Award. Released in 2005, The Cosmic Game featured guest vocalists Perry Farrell, the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, and David Byrne, and the remix compilation Versions followed in 2006. As election season approached, Thievery Corporation released the politically minded studio effort Radio Retaliation in September 2008. Featuring a guest appearance from Mr. Lif, Culture of Fear arrived in 2011 and mixed social commentary with dub tracks. Their 2014 release, Saudade, turned their music in a different direction, being a bossa nova-based effort with guest vocalists like LouLou Ghelichkhani, Karina Zeviani, and Elin Melgarejo. For their eighth studio album, 2017's Temple of I & I, the duo temporarily relocated to Jamaica, where they could fully channel their dub/reggae influences into the recording process. Here's a track from the latest disc:

Monday, February 12, 2018

The show opened with the sultry sounds of Emily Fairlight, whose Americana reminded me of Eb and Sparrow. They put in a smooth but quiet set, to slowly warm us up. Then it was on with the main act. Back for their third, or is it fourth tour this brilliant multi instrumental sibling trio gave us a great night. they featured songs from their album Superscope plus a number of oldies from the previous releases. One of the highlights was Lewis' guitar solo on a tune that resembled the ghost of Hooker's Boom Boom Boom. Kitty Durham has always been the sexy enfant terrible and she didn't disappoint tonight. Dressed in a tight black top, tight leather shorts and go-go boots and cussing about jet-lag and the stifling heat on stage (it was 25+ outside) she was not to be messed with. Daisy also impressed with her harmonic playing and as always her skills on guitar and drums. In the background Dad, Graeme kept tempo on guitar and tambourine. Missing was mum, Ingrid Weiss, who was replaced on stage by another bassist. It was great to see that Eddie Tan Tan Thornton is still playing with them, as he joined them on stage with his trumpet for a few numbers. But it was a shame that the old Bodega has now gone. The band noticed and sad so but they enjoyed San Fran's vibe and the full house of mostly older patrons did too. Sadly, I'll miss the Auckland show which will also feature Blind Boy Paxton.

Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid

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Groove is New Zealand's only Cafe Style Jazz Radio Station. Also the only locally owned & operated, independent commercial radio station in Wellington. We specialise in Lounge, Swing, Classic Jazz, Blues, Acid Jazz, Funk, Soul and anything with a Groove. We also champion local artists, DJs, funk collectives - anyone who makes groovy music. We love to help the local community including on-air messages and broadcasting live at events. We want all Groovers, young and old to live and breathe the vibe in Wellington's funky, vibrant city. Groove is your soundtrack. Tune in here or on the Tunein mobile app (Search for Groove 107.7FM or Stations in Wellington NZ). We're not currently broadcasting on FM but hope to be back as soon as we get some sponsorship for a new transmission site. Are you in business? We are also the most cost effective way to reach the people with style & money in New Zealand via radio. To find out more about our advertising deals, click on the link above.